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UNITED STATES OF AMERICA. 



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PROS AND CONS 



WOMAN SUFFRAGE: 



REVIEW OE A LEGISLATIVE REPORT. 



BY ONE OF THE SEX. 




to hi 



BOSTON: 
W. B. CLARKE AND CARRUTH, 

340 Washington Street. 

1882. 






*>2> 



Copyright, 1882, 
By W. B. Clarke and Carruth. 



University Press : 
John Wilson and Son, Cambridge. 



WOMAN SUFFEAGE. 



In taking up these pages — written long since, but 
now preparing for the press — we came across a six 
months' old paper, containing an article with heading 
almost identical with our own title ; namely, " The Pros 
and Cons of Woman Suffrage : a Complex Question." 

As on looking it over we found that its first para- 
graph gave a good, general idea of the present state 
of this " question," we will adopt it as an appropriate 
preface to this Review, which we offer to the public, as 
possibly helping to disentangle the " complexity," as 
well as the perplexity into which this subject has 
seemed to have thrown many minds, notably in this 
latest epoch. It is as follows : — 

" Woman suffrage is riding upon the wind. There is 
probably no modern reform that can show a record of such 
positive and persistent advocacy. The explanation is in 
the complete consecration of its defenders. Those who 
watch the coarse of events feel that some reward should 
come to the tireless steadiness with which this cause has 
been urged. Still, a pervading indifference to it is the 
rule in the community ; and this indifference does not per- 
tain to conservative and apathetic people, but rather to 
the progressive and intellectual advance guard of society. 



4 WOMAN SUFFRAGE. 

It is significant of a decided division of opinion among 
cultivated women that in the past week, while the Na- 
tional Woman Suffrage Association was in convention at 
Washington, a meeting for the consideration of a remon- 
strance to the Massachusetts Legislature was held almost 
in the shadow of the State House. This remonstrant 
party (consisting wholly of women) is still in the proto- 
plasmic stage, and may never advance beyond it; yet, 
consisting as it does of a considerable body of cultured 
and conscientious women, it serves to show how diversely 
thoughtful people may view the issues of a social reform." x 

For this latter purpose, of showing hoiv " diversely " 
people may look at this " reform," so called, we take 
up here the Report of one of our New England legis- 
latures, to discuss its items, as they are presented in 
a more full and detailed manner than is usually the 
case ; although the foundation principle of them, " equal 
rights" and " equal liabilities," is an acknowledged 
one, not only by women-suffragists themselves, but in 
other legislative ' Reports,' — as in the words of the 
bill introduced in the late Xew York Assembly : " Every 
woman shall be free to vote under the qualifications 
required of men." The Massachusetts Legislature 
acted upon the same principle when granting the bal- 
lot to women for members of the school committee, in 
requiring that the women who voted should have been 
registered and have paid a poll-tax, as is required of 
the male voters. Also, in the bill acted upon in its last 
session for giving to woman the municipal suffrage, 
the same basis is implied in the following passages: 
She u shall have a right to vote in all such elections, 

1 Boston Transcript, Jan. 26, 1882. 



WOMAN SUFFRAGE. 5 

with all powers that male citizens have at such elec- 
tions ; . . . and any female citizen may hold any city or 
town office to which she may be elected or appointed." 

This logical outcome has doubtlessly been gaining 
ground, as we see in frequent allusions by public speak- 
ers and writers, that if the sex become voters, they 
will become equally eligible with men for holding the 
offices voted for ; that is, that " equal rights and privi- 
leges " must give also " equal labors " and "duties." 
So that even science itself, in the person of a Huxley, 
can say, " Emancipate girls. . . . Let them, if they so 
please, become merchants, barristers, politicians. Let 
them have a fair field, but let them understand, as a 
necessary correlative, that they can have no favor;'''' 1 
in other words, that the same will be required of them 
as of men. 

With this principle, thus publicly recognized, the 
propriety of the following discussion will be clearly 
seen ; and we will proceed at once to the examination 
of the Report alluded to, commencing with its argu- 
ments on the 

VOTING LIABILITIES OF WOMEN. 

Women are aware that, in voting, the same taxation 
of property to which they are now subject will still be 
demanded of them. The cases of refusal to pay taxes, 
occurring now and then among the female advocates 
of woman suffrage, do not proceed from an unwilling- 
ness to pay the taxes in themselves, but from a 

1 Quoted by Miss Anna E. Dickinson in The Woman's Journal of 
Jan. 28, 1882. 



b WOMAN SUFFRAGE 

desire to have the right of voting connected with this 
duty, or, in payment of it. They cannot, indeed, 
anticipate being exempt from taxation : they only feel 
that it would be easier and pleasanter, in a moral 
sense, to make that 'payment,' if the privilege of the 
ballot accompanied it. That is, they are perfectly 
willing, or think they would be so, to pay taxes as an 
equivalent for this privilege; whereas, without it. tax- 
ation seems to them onerous and burdensome. 

It is well known that even men do not have their 
vote for ' nothing.' But besides the usual poll and 
property tax, the Report : before us gives an enlarged 
idea of the 'payment' claimed of men who possess 
the right of voting: and also, although entirely advo- 
cating female suffrage, what it considers should be 
required of women, in granting them the ballot. This 
will be seen in the following passages : — 

" It is . . . clear that to give women the right to vote 
without subjecting them to the same duties and liabilities 
that the men who vote are subject to, would also be unjust. 
If women are to share with men the right, or. more prop- 
erly speaking, the privilege,' 2 of voting, they must also 
share with men the duties and liabilities incident to such 
privilege. . . . The most serious liability women should 
share with men, if they are to share with them all rights 
and privileges, is the liability to service in case of war. 

1 Report of the " Special Committee on "Woman Suffrage/' of the 
Rhode Island Legislature, March, 1674. 

2 This Report marks no distinction between natural, civil, and politi- 
cal rights. In the above passage alone it appears to admit the dif- 
ference between a 'right' (by nature), and a ' privilege ' extended 
politically. Nowhere else throughout the pamphlet have we found 
this topic explained, or even alluded to. 



i 



WOMAN SUFFRAGE. 7 

There is no reason against such equal liability of men and 
women, for half, perhaps, of the positions in the army and 
navy might as well, or even better, be filled by women. 
They might occupy positions in all hospitals, commissa- 
ry's, quartermaster's, and paymaster's departments. And 
this would be no discrimination in their favor, for it is 
not considered any discrimination in favor of the men 
who now fill those departments." 

Query : The men who are now appointed to such 
positions, instead of in the ' rank and file,' are so, it 
is presumed, upon their own application, or from espe- 
cial fitness or qualification ; and these members of the 
army form but a small portion, comparatively, of the 
whole number of men in service. If, then, the whole 
or the great majority of women who should be in the 
service were placed in those positions, instead of in 
the ' field ' or ' camp,' would it not be really " dis- 
criminating" in their favor? 

The Eeport continues : — 

" That our army, as now organized, is deficiently organ- 
ized, is attested by the fact that thousands of women, 
during our late war, voluntarily and persistently, often in 
spite of the opposition of the authorities, entered into the 
service of the nation, many of them at the sacrifice of 
their health and lives ; and we all know what noble ser- 
vice they did, and in what ^esteem they were held by our 
soldiers and the country at large I Can any one doubt 
that their services would have been tenfold as great had 
they been part of the organized service? " 

It is a well-known fact that women have at all 
periods, ancient and modern, in an emergency or in 



8 WOMAN SUFFRAGE. 

times of peril, devoted themselves to the public welfare. 
Oar own grandmothers or great-grandmothers did 
this before us, during the days of our Revolution, as 
far as they could. It is an instinctive and moral, as 
well as patriotic duty, in which women have never 
failed when the occasion presented itself ; and we may 
therefore expect them, at any and all future times, 
on similar opportunities, to come forward as readily, 
"voluntarily and persistently'' — without need of 
previous "army organization" — as they did in our 
late war. 

But there is a little obscurity in the above paragraph 
quoted. Does it mean to imply, in the assertion of our 
army being " now deficiently organized," that those 
bands of women who rendered such aid ought, in gen- 
eral, to be still retained in our regular or ' standing ' 
army corps ? But what need of those services at pres- 
ent, in a time of peace ? 

And can it be supposed that those women of the 
Sanitary Commission — as it is, doubtless, they to 
whom the Report refers — would or could have done a 
" tenfold " greater work than they did, had they been 
under the common army regulations, instead of those 
of a well-organized, although voluntary corps, devoted 
exclusively to the one purpose of the health and com- 
fort of the soldiers ; a corps, too, which was recognized 
by, and was in actual unison and sympathy with, the 
army in all its needs and operations ? Or do the 
writers hint at some other service to be demanded of 
the women, as would seem from the next paragraph ? 

" And the records of the war show, moreover, that many 
women actually carried muskets and served in the ranks. 



WOMAN SUFFRAGE. V 

. . . There are, probably, many women now alive who thus 
served in the field through the war." 

We have no data for knowing how ' many ' women 
thus fought with muskets ; but presuming, from the 
above statement, that there may have been quite a 
number, yet these, all told, could be but an infinitesi- 
mal proportion of the female population of our country, 
even as it was at that time. War always brings out 
the most strong, determined, and resolute qualities of 
either sex ; and in every country and age there have 
been these exceptional cases among women, — those 
who could and did exert themselves in such way. 
But this Report cannot, surely, mean to infer that it 
would be advisable or desirable, even if it were pos- 
sible, for our women in general, or, as it might happen, 
in good numbers, thus to place themselves in active 
service ? 

It appears to come very near this meaning, however, 
in the next quotations : — 

" In case of a draft, women, then, as well as men, should 
be liable to serve or provide substitutes. It is useless to 
object that this would be a greater burden than most 
women could bear. How many drafted men in this Stnte, 
during the late war, served themselves or paid for substi- 
tutes? It is well known that the towns paid, generally, 
for these substitutes, and for the support of their families 
while they were in the service. . . . 

"Let not the mere novelty of such a state of things 
deter men of reason from seeing that there is nothing 
impracticable in it, but that it is more consonant than the 
present state with strict justice and political right. 

" Women, then, as well as men would be liable to serve 



10 WOMAN SUFFRAGE. 

in such places as they are, by their physical and mental 
organizations, fitted to fill," — that is, large, muscular 
women to carry the musket, or the sword even, in the 
field, — is it not so? — and women of strong minds or 
nerves to have the command of companies, or regiments, 
perhaps, to bring up a 'forlorn hope ' or a 'reserve corps ' 
in a doubtful battle, et cetera, — " subject equally with 
men to equitable laws of exemption for sufficient cause, to 
be fixed by statute, and having equal privileges with men 
to provide substitutes or pay whatever the law of supply 
and demand may compel them to pay." 

A large opening for women ! one might exclaim. 
No more need of women seeking ivJiat they shall do ; 
here is the great field of the army ready for them, or 
will be so just as soon as the ballot shall be granted. 

In time of peace this might be an easy life enough ; 
it seems rather too easy, mostly, for men : living in 
barracks in out-of-the-way, quiet stations is for them 
rather a monotonous life. But this ease and quiet, 
might just suit the feminine soldiers, or soldier-ess-es. 

In time of peace, then, that quiet garrison life might 
accord very well with the slighter constitutions and 
more contemplative temperament of the female mem- 
bers. But in war-time would be the difficulty, — how 
to regulate the exemption list spoken of. 

The fair young girls, just reaching their majority — 
and, of course, beginning to vote — ought, naturally, 
to be the very ones employed. For in the hciglwfc of 
the ardor and enthusiasm of their age, with no experi- 
ence as yet of life to dull their sanguine expectations, 
they would undoubtedly be the very ones to go forward, 
to the * front,' with all the moral bravery and heroism 



WOMAN SUFFRAGE. 11 

of the sex. Yes, the Harvard and other ' boys' just 
out of college, had a wonderful energy and endurance. 
This must be the precise period, then, the most ser- 
viceable, — no ties behind to keep one back, no dread 
before to make one hesitate. Thus we should be pre- 
pared in all probability to see the Harvard 'girls' also 
— as a ' college ' appears now to be preparing too for 
them — emulating their brothers, and offering their 
young lives in active service at their country's call. 

But, notwithstanding all this courage and devotion, 
if they should succumb in the war, and the very flower 
of our young womanhood fall, dying, upon the field of 
battle, as did so many of our brave young men, what 
then ? Would the nation think that the " glory " of 
such death, and the service that these fair young crea- 
tures were willing to render, as payment for the privi- 
lege of the ballot conferred upon them, would be an 
equivalent, for the decimation, by such sacrifices, of its 
youthful female as well as male population ? 

Or if the draft fell among the maturer ranks, and 
those who were wives and mothers — unless, indeed, 
our statesmen and legislators might decide that it 
were the single women only, who should be designated 
to this service, — and then, alas ! might not the homes 
of our country soon be called to bewail the loving sis- 
ters, devoted daughters, the kind and careful maiden 
aunts, the 'matronly' spinsters, even, which every 
circle and neighborhood needs, time and again, for 
aid and resource when all others fail ? 

But we will leave the " exemption " list for the gen- 
tlemen of the law and the government to look after 
when they shall have these " amendments " of the 



12 WOMAN SUFFRAGE. 

Constitution, or new statutes, to enact, and will turn to 
the next paragraph of our Report, following the one 
last quoted : — 

" An incidental good effect of such measures would be 
the consequent diminishment of the chances of war. It 
would be one of the best peace measures ever proposed, 
for every people would hesitate and be less liable to be 
led into war by sudden excitement, if men and women 
were subject to equal liability of service." 

It is here seen that the authors of this pamphlet 
were quite in earnest in their proposition, if one had 
doubted it before. But even here we think they have 
counted too much on the influence of such a measure 
in doing away with the actual fact of w T ar. Nothing 
appears to have occurred, even in these latest times, 
except possibly a case or two of " arbitration," to ban- 
ish the possibility of war. Arguments were long since 
uttered in connection with education. " Educate " the 
people, was the word, and " armies may be disbanded. " 
Education went on, improving to a higher and higher 
point each year, and our school system had become 
almost a model for the world. But where, scarcely, in 
history, was there a more terrible, fratricidal, destruc- 
tive warfare, than that waged by our own selves for 
four long years, after all those high hopes and prophe- 
syings ? 

And have there not been in the air, at times since, 
murmurings, threatenings, an underground rumbling, 
as it were, premonitions of some sudden, outburst 
which might come, or which may come still, we know 
not when, perhaps when least expected ; as out of the 






WOMAN SUFFRAGE. 13 

clear sky of a summer morning arises often an unex- 
pected, driving tempest or whirlwind, which, for the 
moment, sweeps all before it ? No frame of govern- 
ment whatever seems yet to have been a safeguard 
against the possibilities of war ; and we therefore, like 
any other, should be prepared for these possibilities. 

And should such disaster again come to ourselves, 
we may expect that women, as ever before, will come 
up with fortitude and endurance to the occasion, on 
whichever side they may deem their duty and interest 
to lie, and to help it on. Not from any natural predis- 
position to the fighting element, but because wherever 
woman's heart, mind, and devotion are placed, there 
will she be found, overlooking, sacrificing all else that 
is possible for the cause, forgetting self, and standing 
at the cannon's mouth if necessary. The bold courage 
and daring of women, it is well known, are as great 
as in the other sex, when emergency puts them to the 
test ; and this as much among ourselves as elsewhere, 
as there are cases in point in our own recent history, 
as well as many that occurred in the Revolutionary or 
earlier times. A writer some time since gave the fol- 
lowing instances of what occurred in our civil war : — 

" A bevy of girls stood under a sharp fire from the en- 
emy's lines at Petersburg one day, while they sang Bayard 
Taylor's ' Song of the Camp ' to cheer on the soldiers. 

"A young girl, not more than sixteen years of age, acted 
as guide to a scouting party during the early years of the 
war, and when we urged her to go back after the enemy 
had opened a vigorous fire upon us, she declined, on the 
plea that she believed we were 'going to charge those 
fellows ' and she c wanted to see the fun.' . . . Women did 



14 WOMAN SUFFRAGE. 

their shopping and went about their duties under a most 
uncomfortable bombardment, without evinciug the slight- 
est fear or showing any nervousness whatever." * 

It would be well for any who advocate an " equal 
liability" proposition (for voting), to look up similar 
cases which doubtless occurred all over our country 
during that period, and especially instances in the 
Southern States, to which the above belonged, because 
they, being more restricted in means, show strikingly 
to what extent self-sacrifice in such periods can go. 
And the many affecting instances there reported of 
self-denial, even to poverty and death, were those of 
our own American women, born on our own soil, mem- 
bers of our own national state. Thus we see, with a 
'Barbara Frietchie' and others at the North, that still 
at this day, as ever, whenever woman's interest for 
her country or her cause is concerned, she may be 
relied upon, even to the death. 2 We must not be too 

1 " Conduct of the Women of the South." — Atlantic Monthly. 

2 We know not if the following instance has been recorded in print, 
of her devotion to a cause in time of peace. But as the facts are not 
only touching as showing a noble self forgetfulness, or rather a noble 
consecration, and are so honorable to our sex, we see not why they may 
not be given here. And our Southern sisters may believe that it is 
only with pride that we record such example of womanly virtue and 
energy in the midst of so much to distress and discourage: — 

At a little town in South Carolina, where the bishop stopped on 
one of his pastoral visits, the church had been ruined in the late war 
and was still dilapidated and unused. The ladies of the parish had 
been anxious to restore and reinstate it, but as yet were entirely 
without means. 

On the bishop's next annual visit, however, he was deeply affected 
— and could not relate it afterwards without tears — to find what 
these ladies had in the mean time done. It was to reclaim a piece of 
waste land, breaking it up and digging it themselves, then with their 



WOMAN SUFFRAGE. 15 

certain, then, that an army, composed one half of 
women, — trained too by the ballot in the field of po- 
litical strife, — would ward off the prospects of war on 
a more sanguinary battle-field. 

But it is time to return to the women themselves, 
who, according to this Suffrage Report, should serve 
when drafted, or provide substitutes. 

In war-time, unless the women actually went them- 
selves, whom could they obtain for substitutes, men 
being out of the question, as themselves subject to 
the draft, or at all events being called upon by their 
own sex as substitutes ? 

Supposing always that she does not go herself, 
money must then be paid for every woman drafted ; 
and if by the towns, as the pamphlet implies, 1 would 
they not soon conceive this to be a losing scheme, an 
unwise measure of ' political economy,' paying for non- 
entities, that is, for those who neither go themselves 
nor can possibly procure substitutes ? 

But how in peace-time ? 

We believe the statutes of every State require the 
men liable to service to devote certain time each year 
to militia training. What would be done with the 
women in this case, being " equally liable," according 
to this regime? Must they also, each year, give a 
part of their time to training, — in the field, or in the 
hospital, etc., — or pay a fine for their non-attendance ? 

This yearly taxation, not confined to women who 

own hands planting it with cotton-seed, taking care of it personally 
during all its growth, and finally gathering the cotton themselves, 
making it into bales and selling it. With these proceeds they restored 
their little church and had its services commenced again. 
1 See page 9. 



16 WOMAN SUFFRAGE. 

hold property, as at present, but applied to the masses 
of the female population throughout the country, — 
would it not indeed, for them, be paying dear for the 
whistle, — for the satisfaction of voting ? And in the 
vast majority of women, would it not be likely to cause 
even a more strenuous rebellion, than the simple prop- 
erty-tax now does among the few who possess prop- 
erty ? And the latter themselves, might they not prefer 
to ' bear ' the taxation they have, rather than to fly 
to that which they now ' know not of? 

WHO SHALL VOTE? 

It would seem, however, that this Legislative Report 
was not, after all, for impartial or universal woman 
suffrage, but rather for conferring the ballot on those 
who are possessors of property. It says (page 10) : — 

"Fortunately, we [in Rhode Island] have a property 
qualification, and this would exclude women, as it now 
does men, from voting on any proposition to impose a tax, 
or for the expenditure of money, unless they shall be prop- 
erly qualified by the possession of property. The usual 
conservative influence of women would thus come more 
into play, which may relieve the fears of those who im- 
agine hitherto undreamt-of horrors, if women as well as 
men are to have their rights [of voting]." 

Here follow the reasons for this discrimination : — 

"Although it may be well to have a property qualifica- 
tion in the absence of hope of any better," — would the 
authors mean to say that there could be no hope of a suf- 
ficient basis of education or intelligence? — "let it not be 
thought that it is because property and the possession of 



WOMAN SUFFRAGE. 17 

it are peculiarly sacred. A better reason is, that, on the 
whole, the possession of property is some evidence that 
the possessor is able to take care of property," — but how 
in case of an heiress brought up under guardianship, and 
with no care whatever of her property? — "and, there- 
fore, is fitted to attend to the interests of the State. In 
the long run, property remains only with those who can 
take care of it, and those are the ones to take care of the 
State." 

If a woman then, brought up in luxury and knowing 
little of business, should squander or lose in any man- 
ner her property after coming in possession of it, her 
privilege of voting would be withdrawn, — would it 
not ? — she being no longer, under such circumstances, 
suited " to take care of the State." 

"Another good reason why the possession of property 
should qualify one to vote is, that, having personal inter- 
ests at stake, such a one will be more apt to weigh new 
measures with due deliberation before overturning any 
established order of things." 

It seems then, here, to be quite settled that the long- 
talked of privilege of voting should be confined to 
women of property. There is, then, a large loop-hole 
of escape for the great body of women, from service in 
the camp and in the navy. Those only voting who 
have money, they could, of course, pay their yearly 
fine if they did not wish to " train ; " and they would 
be able to save themselves in time of war, for, in case 
of draft, they could also buy a substitute. Yes, this 
would be a very suitable arrangement indeed, leaving 
us other women as we are now, without voting, but 
also without the military tax, and without necessity of 
2 



18 WOMAN SUFFEAGE. 

serving in army or navy. Thus ice should he ' free ' 
women, possessed, quite, of the happy boon of ' free- 
dom.' 

But we fear that the authors of this Eeport counted 
rather too much — as they did in the item of preven- 
tion of war, if women were on the army roll — when 
they relied upon that comparatively small body, the 
women of property, for the suppression of moral evils. 
They continue : — 

"Let us remember how much women have at stake in 
the cause of suppression of intemperance, and how much 
more effective their power of assistance would be if they 
had equal rights with men/' 

But would so limited a number — women holding 
property in their own right — be likely to effect so 
much by their votes, all counted, as is now effected by 
the sex banded together, or a large portion of it, in 
active work for the suppression of intemperance ? 

For the above reason — the property clause — our 
authors were desirous, or thought it would be advis- 
able, that female suffrage should commence in their 
own State, the voting men already possessing that 
qualification. But they had other grounds for that 
desire. They say (page 9) : — 

" There is peculiar propriety in consummating this great 
reform in this State, which led the great reform of perfect 
liberty of opinion in religious matters, a reform in that day 
considered as impracticable and chimerical as this is in 
ours. And, as in that case, the time will come when men 
will wonder at the strange ajmrehensions and fears en- 
tertained." 



WOMAN SUFFRAGE. 19 

It appears to us that there is error in putting these 
two "reforms" together. The latter, that of freedom 
of religious opinion, belongs to the class of natural, per- 
sonal rights, those of using our own minds in religious 
thought. It was the same " inalienable right " on which 
many of our forefathers proceeded to these shores. They 
had, some of them, undertaken to exercise that right in 
England, as well as Mr. Roger Williams, afterwards, in 
Massachusetts ; and they had fled to this, then, wilder- 
ness, bringing it here, as they conceived, to be able to 
enjoy it to the full, with none to "molest" or make 
them " afraid." They felt the right of liberty of opinion, 
although in the abstract, it was not fully or philosophi- 
cally denned, in their minds, any more than it seems 
to be with us, in many cases at this day. And it is not 
strange that they were not pleased to be disturbed in 
this quiet nook they had found, in having questions of 
religious difference coming before them so soon again. 

It seems to us, then, not at all to be wondered at, 
in their time at least, that they should have wished to 
take in strenuous hand, a disturber, as they regarded 
him, into their chosen fold, and so have banished Mr. 
Williams; who then himself sought a "wilderness," 
for his personal freedom of opinion, as they had done 
before him. This being driven about from place to 
place, — first, of the pilgrims of Plymouth, then of the 
Puritans of Massachusetts Bay, some of them, then of 
Roger Williams, — was the practical and providential 
development of the doctrine in this New World. Mr. 
Williams has had the honor, historically, of a more 
clear and definite idea of it than his predecessors ; but 
it undoubtedly grew, became crystallized, clarified, in 



20 WOMAN SUFFRAGE. 

his mind only under, or in consequence of, these very 
experiences, — ' persecution,' ' banishment,' ' personal 
hardship,' or whatever. 

At length this "liberty of opinion," as far as it con- 
cerns the private individual, has become fully possessed, 
with us, of its place as a "natural" right, of which 
there is no possibility of divesting one ; for one may be 
enclosed in a dungeon and yet you cannot prevent him 
from having his own thoughts and convictions. The 
only limit to freedom of thought, or open expression 
of it, is, as it appears to us, in this country as well as 
in every other, or should be, where that freedom or 
'expression' works personal injury, as in insult, libel, 
slander, or is subversive of the public good, as in se- 
dition, insubordination to government, etc., when, nat- 
urally, it becomes restrained by the law as a ' disturber 
of the public peace ; ' and such were the facts on which 
our fathers proceeded, we think justly according to the 
premises, in those cases of " banishment," and so 
forth. 

Such " reform," so called by this Report, of granting 
to a sane and orderly person, a perfect " freedom of 
opinion," one can see is, in its nature, entirely differ- 
ent from that of conferring a political privilege upon 
persons, or upon a sex, which never yet had possessed 
it. Yet this latter " reform," our pamphlet says, in 
likening them together, must come as certainly as did 
the other : — 

" We see the signs of it on all sides, and it is only a 
question of time. The more the question is ngitated, the 
more apparent is the necessity for the reform, and the 
more converts are made. . . . Why not go to the root of 



WOMAN SUFFRAGE. 21 

the matter at once, for get there we certainly shall in the 
end." 

If, for instance, we might add, those perplexing con- 
ditions, which have been discussed, could be settled to 
the satisfaction of all. The few women of property, 
voting, would hardly satisfy the number who are look- 
ing for a much broader generalization. But other States 
might present more eligible views. For example, our 
pamphlet was quite reticent on the career of the navy, 
for women, after once mentioning it. But the State of 
Maryland, having the national Navy School within its 
borders, might probably bring that item forward more 
prominently, as the navy would seem to combine the 
two advantages earnestly sought in these days for girls 
and young women, — the three or four years of strict, 
thorough, systematic study, and then the active life at 
sea, which would bring them into the full practice of 
public utility and business. Their more slight and agile 
forms would be admirably adapted to a quick ascending 
or descending of the ropes ; and as it is natural for 
woman to be often called to " watch," she might bear 
both the day and night watches extremely well, taking 
her turn regularly when the hour came round. 

Other States, too, as Massachusetts, have only a 
voting qualification of a little learning, as reading and 
writing, instead of the property one ; which would 
render a much larger number eligible, as almost every 
one of the native women can read and write, even if 
they possess no property. But in New York, in all 
the Southern States, we believe, since the colored 
population at large have a vote, and in some others, 
it would be still more favorable, as nothing in these 



22 WOMAN SUFFRAGE. 

is required, — no property, education, or morals, we 
might say — no State having, as yet, we think, 
adopted that item of qualification for " taking care of 
the people, " in voting. Such States would have then, 
doubtlessly, to prove the model, and carry the day for 
the much demanded " universal woman suffrage ; " 
being able in these cases to take in all the foreign as 
well as our native-born fellow-citizenesses. 

But there is one more item in this Report as to ' who 
shall vote,' which cannot be omitted. It is as follows 
(page 5) : — 

f If women, then, are fit for politics, are politics fit for 
women? Is there any truth in the assertion so often 
made and repeated, that the duties of active political life 
are incompatible with the duties of a mother and the cares 
of a household? Even if this is true, this objection can 
apply only to mothers, and a sufficient answer is, that the 
incompatibility itself will prevent their undertaking to 
carry out both classes of duties. . . . And in the case of 
single women, and the large class of women in excess 
of men, this so-called argument of the duties of mothers 
does not apply." 

But are not, in fact, the great majority of women, 
mothers, or in the place of mothers, — the many 
single women, for instance, who have the care of fam- 
ilies or households ; and the large class of women in 
all the schools, who arc daily devoted to the teaching 
of children, — the instruction of the young? Surely 
if anything comes near to the mother's place, or ought 
to, it is that. 

Throwing out, then, the mothers, — for who, indeed, 
in these busy days, ever sees the mother of a house- 



WOMAN SUFFRAGE. 23 

hold who has " time enough " for half her duties ? 
" No time for this," " No time for that," is a prevail- 
ing cry : would it be a wonder then, that she should 
not have time for ' active political life ' in addition to 
all the rest ? (Especially during the period of mater- 
nity, does not nature itself place her aside ? l Where 
then is her natural ; right ' to the ballot, or natu- 
ral ' equality ' with man in this respect ? ) Throw- 
ing out these, then, and the very many besides who 
are acting in families and schools as ' mothers,' as 
above said, added to the many women of no prop- 
erty, again leaves but a very small proportion of 
women eligible for possession of the ballot : the class 
would be reduced, in fact, to the comparatively small 
number of unmarried women of leisure and of prop- 
erty. 

This much simplifies matters, however ; and these, 
in making a stand by themselves, might possibly better 
secure their u rights." 

EFFECT ON WOMEN. 

Our Report continues : — 

" If it is argued that the admission of women to active 
political life will harden them, we ask in vain for the 
proof. On the contrary the eminent women whose names 
are prominent now, or in the pages of history, instead of 
being hardened by their contact with men, are noted for 
their gentle traits and humanizing influence on their 
time." (As the topic of " Political Women," etc., is 

1 We have the above (two) expressions from an earnest and es- 
teemed mother of a household ; and who can gainsay them ? 



24 WOMAN SUFFRAGE. 

taken up in a larger work by the writer, soon to be in 
press, we would refer the reader to this subject there.) 

"And we must not lightly disregard the injury done 
to men by the exclusive control and exercise of political 
and legal power. No one can exercise such absolute 
uncontrollable power over others without suffering for it 
ultimately. It must produce among men a deterioration 
in what are called the manly virtues. Those who so fear 
that women may become men do not see the danger of 
men's becoming what they insist women should be, and 
the danger of their thus falling into the feebleness they 
have so long cultivated in their companions. Men can- 
not retain manliness, as opposed to effeminateness, unless 
women acquire it." 

Is it then necessary, vice versa, for men to become 
feminine and womanlike, in order that women may 
remain so ? If the one alternative is true, why not 
the other, — in presuming the sexes, by nature, to be 
on equal ground, according to the theory of this Re- 
port, and our own theory also, that they are neither 
" superior " nor " inferior " the one to the other ? 

We should say, then, that each sex was to retain its 
own " manliness," and " womanliness," on its own 
independent basis, its own responsibilities and dig- 
nity, — a woman fulfilling her duties, or her life, in 
her own ' womanly ' way, and a man fulfilling his in 
his own ' manly ' way ; each sex having its own ful- 
ness of condition in this respect, as it has so had, thus 
far, in civilized life, in all the sixty hundred years of 
its existence upon this planet; the men, according to 
all records, being as manly now, and the women as 
womanly, as they were at their first appearance in 
history, six or seven thousand years ago. 



WOMAN SUFFRAGE. 25 

It is to be trusted, then, that men, with political 
duties and activities, are not, in this age of the world, 
becoming ' effeminate' under them. It would be un- 
fortunate that our republican institutions should have 
such effect, especially since Woman Suffrage, which 
seems in the mind of the writers of this Report to be 
the ' forlorn hope ' to avert such a catastrophe, is yet 
in abeyance ; is but an ' experiment ' in prospective : 
and seems now, after the review we have been making, 
but clustered about with more difficulties than ever. 

The sexes undoubtedly are, and should be, an aid 
and help to each other ; but in what way this can be 
effected more than is ordinarily the case, or than they 
naturally act and react one upon the other, we think 
is to be solved by private and personal, or social, rather 
than by public, political action. 

For ourselves, we have no objection to a little recip- 
rocal exchange of duties now and then. For instance, 
as we were lately walking out, we met a very pretty 
turnout, — the party evidently a husband and wife. 
The lady was driving, and the gentleman was holding 
the baby. It looked charming, — a little mutual ar- 
rangement, undoubtedly: the wife wanting, perhaps, 
to learn to drive, or to have the pleasure of driving 
just then, and the husband took the baby for her. Or, 
as the lady was slight, she was tired, may be, and the 
gentleman, being quite robust, thought possibly that 
he would take the fatigue himself of holding the child 
awhile, and so relieve his wife. And are not sucli 
" mutual arrangements " always taking place in one 
form or another ? 

But instead of these family adaptations and assist- 



26 WOMAN SUFFRAGE. 

ances, — opportunities for which are of course daily 
occurring, — our Report seems to look at making the 
sexes exactly alike, in every duty and office. Namely 
(pagel): — 

"To accomplish this reform, men and women should 
have equal education in all schools, colleges, universities, 
medical, legal, and theological institutions, and access to 
all professions, equal partnership in the labors and gains, 
risks and remuneration of industry ; and equal share in 
the formation and administration of all laws, and liability 
and obligation under them, through legislative assemblies, 
courts, and executive offices." 

That is, if we understand it rightly, in addition to 
the military and naval occupations, our sex should also 
be equally distributed, with men, among the legislative 
assemblies, as Representatives and Senators ; among 
the Courts, District, Circuit, and Supreme, as lawyers 
and judges ; and in all executive offices, as Secretaries, 
Governors, Presidents, etc. 

It adds : — 

" The acceptance as a political axiom of the self-evident 
truth that law should know no sex" (that "common" 
law, in its practial working, knows no sex, is, we believe, 
already very true, women coming under its restrictions, 
as do men), — "the incorporation of it," (interpreted by 
the above schedule ? ) "in our Constitution, and the liv- 
ing up to it, politically and socially, would effectually 
accomplish this reform." 

But what would become in the mean time of woman's 
work ? Would it not be necessary, in such case, that 
men themselves should share half her burden at least; 
giving up half of their " manly " duties and taking 



WOMAN SUFFRAGE. 27 

half of her "womanly" ones, — putting to rights the 
parlors, the bedrooms ; doing up the sewing for the 
household ; preparing the children each morning, in 
punctual season, for school ; arranging, ordering the 
cooking, morning, noon, and night ; receiving the 
family friends, and ' the cousins and the aunts' 
from the country ; doing the ' shopping ' for those who 
do not come ; seeing to breakfast, dinners, supper at 
their proper hours, — in shqrt, making everything 
ready for their oivn "coming home," — if they would 
ever, under such circumstances, have gotten away at 
all? 

In a recent report of a Woman's Club, the presiding 
officer, a very indefatigable lady, said that it was with 
difficulty that many of them found time to attend the 
weekly meetings ; but as it was a social, and in a great 
degree a mutual assistance club, they felt repaid, in 
the .pleasure and satisfaction received, for any exertion 
they were compelled to make for this purpose, — all 
this in private life, just as woman is situated now. 
We repeat, then, what would become not only of wo- 
man's work, but of woman herself, if all these public 
duties also were added to her life? — unless, indeed, 
as we have just suggested, but which no advocate of 
' woman's rights,' or of ' man's rights,' up to this 
moment, has appeared to take into consideration, — 
unless, we say, man himself adds half of her occupa- 
tions, at least, to his own duties ? 

If this were not done, our own work and duties 
assuredly must suffer, especially with the increasing 
demands now made upon women in all private life and 
society ; and we should, as a sex, undoubtedly sink in 



28 WOMAN SUFFRAGE. 

the scale upon this very account of being overburdened 
with work, not with ' specialties ' of our own sex, but 
with all work. For, as " special" trainings are now 
more and more considered in society, we should, with 
the work of men — or what has heretofore been con- 
sidered such — upon our hands, in addition to all else, 
certainly not be able to give that thorough attention, 
undivided zeal for and application to our own, which 
would secure a i premium ' of merit. 

This principle of division of labor, is, in these days, 
extending, and necessarily so, into all the ramifications 
of business, among artisans, manufacturers, commer- 
cial men, even smaller traders and dealers to a great 
degree ; and it is one which philosophically and eco- 
nomically is receiving more and more attention. Now 
there are but few arts and contrivances in human life, 
even in the way of machinery and special adaptations, 
but have their prototype in some form in nature : as if 
every practicable, wise, or reasonable idea that occu- 
pies the mind of man, had first its origin or model, in 
the mind or plan of the Divine, or great World, Ar- 
chitect. 

Would it not be well, then, before making this 
change of work, — before opening all of man's career 
to woman, or putting him into Jie?~s, — before such revo- 
lution should be actually carried out, would it not be 
well to look a little into the mind of Providence, and 
try to discover what his intention was, in placing the 
human race in two separate beings, upon this earth: 
whether he really designed that both should do, act, 
feel, think, work in precisely the same manner ? And, 
if they were to have the same identical employments 



arid luties. why was not the human race, represented 
now by two individuals, not put intc 

Does not the very fact" of this separation, indicate 
the • rinciple of ' livision of labor, 1 jost alluded to, as 
the first essential inception of the idea of •• man." :: 
humanity, in the mind of God? He made mar. - in 
his >wn image, 9 says the 3:~:ie: -male and female swe- 
ated he them : ' as if. perchance, one being alone, c : nl 1 
not embrace all the perfections of Deity, the great 
prototype; but that, to evolve in mankind the fully 
"noble" and the " beautiftti." it required each sex: 
that each might be devoted to its special functions, 
thus developing more truly the wbiUt ;: ••manhood " 
and the beauty of •• womanho: :".." — giving to each of 
these terms, as we do. its fullest express:;:., 

PAETT PATRONAGE. 

We have an item or two more, in the Report under 
Iwell upon. It expresses an anxiety in 
regard to the patronage jf its cause by Ehe political 
parties, as follows : — 

" • Those whom the z\ Is ' ;rroy. they f.:' ; t make 

mad.' I: is not su:~ :i ; :: z. therefore, to G n 1 Democrats 

sed 1 making men and w men e laL Bin I I 

led on by the fatuity that h is _ jrne . them for the ] isf 

till court political destruction. . . .Let 

us hope that the Rer > called, will not 

similar death ; ignoring the issues :: tit lay, one jf the 

st of which _ - we are now c: usa ".- 

But surely the decision of a cause so extensive, in 
_ii are involved the happiitess and ng of 



30 WOMAN SUFFRAGE. 

not only a half, but of the whole community, — for are 
not men equally implicated with women in the result ? 
— a work so extensive should not be committed to the 
narrowness and party spirit of any single body of men. 
Commit to the precariousness of politics and political 
leaders those immense and serious interests, which 
would affect, in such change, the whole moral, social, 
and hitherto natural status of woman ? If any, of 
either party, think so or so, they have a right to their 
own opinion — that 'freedom of opinion' which has 
been discussed — without making it a measure, as far 
as this object is concerned, for the rise or downfall of 
either party. "Politics,*' it appears to us, have noth- 
ing whatever to do with a question like this. It should 
be carried far up and beyond any political influence, 
and settled only by the moral, truly reasonable, and 
conscientious sense of right and duty in those who are 
appealed to, to decide upon it. 

Nor would such an appeal to party patronage be 
necessary, even in the views of this Report, on the 
subject, if its words in the following passage were 
true : — 

u The opposition may be said to be composed mainly of 
the weak in intellect, the ignorant who have never thought 
of it, and the inert mass of conservatives; and the so- 
called reasons against it to be mainly the results of igno- 
rance, sentiment, and prejudice, even admitting that some 
people are conscientiously opposed to it." 

It would seem by this that the advocates of Woman 
Suffrage were already the great preponderating party of 
the country, unless, indeed, the hitherto esteemed, in- 



WOMAN SUFFRAGE. 31 

telligent masses of the people plead guilty to the above 
indictment ; and in the case of such majority, the cause 
would not need to claim the aid of either the Demo- 
cratic or the Republican party as such. It is to be 
trusted, therefore, that each of these ruling powers will 
lay aside its " party " colors, and treat the subject 
simply in the independent and unprejudiced light 
which its seriousness demands, whenever called upon 
to do so. 

Our " review," for the present, is at an end ; it hav- 
ing been sufficiently seen how the subject of woman 
suffrage has been, so called, logically treated by men, 
some at least, and which is but the ; logical outcome ' 
alluded to in our ' preface,' from the premises as main- 
tained by them. Yet this theory of " equal " rights, 
in the sense of identical ones, may possibly appear to 
many but of little moment, as extravagant, or as lim- 
ited to a few. It is probably held, however, to a much 
greater extent than is commonly supposed, as would 
appear from the following incident, which occurred 
after the preceding pages were written. 

Two gentlemen on the street were heard discussing 
the law for women's voting on the School Committee. 
Said one of them, "I expect yet to see Mrs. Livermore 
Governor of Massachusetts." 

"Well," replied the other, " when women come to 
hold all offices, what will you do with the police force ? 
Do you think women will be capable of heading a foray 
of policemen at midnight perhaps ? " 

" I have no doubt," was the answer, " that many 
women will make excellent police officers." 



32 WOMAN SUFFRAGE. 

" Would you like to have your wife one ? " was 
rejoined. 

"J don't come so near home as that" was the reply. 

Why wish for others, then, what one would not de- 
sire for one's self? 

In Conclusion, if this "complex question" has not 
been thoroughly " disentangled " by the preceding 
presentation of "pros" and "cons," we trust that 
gentlemen, speakers and writers, — members of Legis- 
latures, — and those of Congress, who according to 
the late Bill there reported, propose to give the po- 
litical ballot to women, — all these authorities,we trust, 
will yet find some other reasons for their course than 
those which we have here seen detailed. 



PROS 


AND COXS 




OF 


WOMAN 


SUFFRAGE: 


• 
REVIEW OF A 


LEGISLATIVE REPORT. 


BY OXE OF THE SEX. 




\x 


BOSTON: 

W. B. CLARKE AND CARRUTH, 

340 Washington Sti:; 

1882. 



LIBRARY OF CONGRESS 



111 



III 



029 809 784 9 



